I am an evil giraffe. But I'm trying, Nick. I'm trying REAL HARD to be the wizard.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) Note: I am not criticizing the author: his essay Apocalyptic Daze is a very clear-headed look at, and discussion of, our current crop of death-loving, Greenie religious fanatics. But I don’t speak French, so I do not know whether that language has the concept of ‘maltheism,’ or whether it has the same cultish, nihilistic overtones that it would in English.

I would normally quote GK Chesterton’s aphorsim “When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn’t believe in nothing. He believes in anything.” at this point – except that he apparently didn’t actually say it, as such (H/T: Ed Driscoll). Which is a shame, in my opinion: because it generally does seem that there are a number of secularists out there who seem to have replaced a belief in what they consider to be a silly concept with other concepts that are (in my opinion) infinitely sillier.

…:shrug: Just as long as they don’t set policy. Separation of Church and state, and all that.

Quick background: there’s a lot of oil in Canada. Quite a bit of it is tied up in the form of oil sands, which radical Greenies hate with the same passion that normal people reserve for ax murderers or child rapists. Despite this hatred, the Canadians have noticed that the price of oil makes oil sand development highly cost effective, which is why they were planning to build the Keystone Pipeline to ship the stuff from Canada to American refineries and distribution centers. This promised to make both America and Canada quite a bit of cash and make our energy costs significantly cheaper, which is why the Greenies successfully pressured President Obama to ‘temporarily’ delay the project.

Anyway: strictly speaking, it is not quite accurate to say that former White House Council of Economic Advisors Chair (and Obama mouthpiece) Austan Goolsbee called opponents of the proposed Keystone Pipeline “naive.” It’s more accurate to say that he called the idea of opposing it ‘naive’ – in fact, that’s pretty much explicitly what Goolsbee said: “It’s a bit naïve to think the tar sands would not be developed if they don’t build that pipeline.” And it is a bit naive, of course.

The IPCC says that rich industrial countries must cut emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020 (from 1990 levels) if the world is to have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. By contrast, the WBGU study says the United States must cut emissions 100 percent by 2020–i.e., quit carbon entirely within ten years. Germany, Italy and other industrial nations must do the same by 2025 to 2030. China only has until 2035, and the world as a whole must be carbon-free by 2050.

I don’t object to a man having a religion. I don’t even mind when his religion impacts his policy opinions. But this desire of the Left to mix their religion with their science is a definite problem.

Bethesda-based USEC on Tuesday accused President Obama of reneging on a campaign pledge after the Energy Department turned down the company’s request for $2 billion in loan guarantees for a new uranium enrichment project in Piketon, Ohio.

[snip]

“We are shocked and disappointed by DOE’s decision,” USEC chief executive John K. Welch said in a statement. “President Obama promised to support the loan guarantee for the American Centrifuge Plant while he campaigned in Ohio. We are disappointed that campaign commitment has not been met.”

[snip]

While campaigning in southern Ohio last August, Obama praised the USEC project. “Under my administration, energy programs that promote safe and environmentally sound technologies and are domestically produced, such as the enrichment facility in Ohio, will have my full support,” he said later in a letter to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D). “I will work with the Department of Energy to help make loan guarantees available for this and other advanced energy programs that reduce carbon emissions. “